So my comics from small joes arrived today. I picked up the entire run of GI Joe: Cobra. The series covering Chuckles as a undercover spy. I thought the first two issues were ok, and developing the story. The third issue, WOW. Chuckles having to kill Jinx blew my mind. Also have a Joe die is something new to me. It was great! I can’t wait to start reading more.
The latest edition of WOJM has just been released, you can find it all over the net, but I decided to link it here as well. I really like both WOJM and Flag Points. Just wish Flag Points was more than just once a month as they announced in their latest episode.
So my collection is growing rapidly and has outgrown my area to display it. So, I am currently in the process of remodeling my garage into a GI Joe show room! I just had the roof redone to prevent leaks and insulation, drywall, flooring and most importantly A/C is all going in this week. I will also have a dehumidifier in the garage as well, but I don’t anticipate fluctuating humidity, especially with insulation and AC.
The eventual goal is custom cabinets with glass to display everything. I will be creating some type of temporary storage and display in the meantime.
BTW, please comment and let me know what you guys like and don’t like. This blog so far as been a mix of community news, and my thoughts and growing collection. I will always try to get new content up at least once a day, but I am still trying to figure out the direction I want to take this site.
So as I have said before, I have been getting into preproduction and prototype items. That includes animation cels from the cartoons. First, while I haven’t watched Resolute (yet) there are some GREAT deals on eBay for original hand drawn art from the cartoon. Second, I have been able to score some really cool DIC animation cels. Just in today are a Cobra Commander and Road Pig cel and a Red Star, Cloudburst and Cutter cel.
Now I know DIC has gotten a lot of crap, but I was born in 1986 so I came around right in the middle of GI Joe. I had a great mix of 80s and 90s toys. That also meant that DIC was MY GI Joe universe. I wasn’t huge into the comics, I had a few, but DIC every morning before school, watching GI Joe was the best for me. Anyway enough of me talking, here are the pics!
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There are two awesome GI Joe prints that will be for sale at the NYCC. Sadly for me, I will have to try and get one of each online the Monday after the convention. 
This seems to have gone under the radar, Hasbro announced an Action Man movie will be in the works. It sounds like it is far off, but I’m excited for another GI Joe property to make it into theaters. Now if only they were good….
On to a rant about Retaliation: I just don’t understand how hard it is to make a movie about GI Joe… The story, and world is there. It could even be a rehashed/mash up from the comics or cartoons and it would work. Casting has also been terrible. Duke and Ripcord, were awful. I will definitely see Retaliation but my bar is set low. It will be entertaining but probably not good. Reshooting scenes and the rumors of it being terrible scare me.
So I bought a few new items: Eco Warriors Eco Striker MIB, an interesting 1987 Muskrat prototype with a Hydro-Viper arm. I don’t have it in hand yet, but it will certainly be interesting to see. I also picked up the 2011 SDCC Starscream MIB, and finally 4 Funskool Toxo-Vipers (Gotta keep building the Leaky Suit Brigade Army). I’m also mulling over another purchase, of a unproduced figure sketch from 1985, looks amazing, but I’m not certain what I want to pay for it.
It looks like Andrei Koribanics (former Hasbro artist) will be doing a longer interview. Either here with me or on a podcast. More to follow later.
I was able to have a short conversation with Andrei Koribanics, he was an artist for Hasbro and he did quite a bit of pre-production artwork for the GI Joe line. He worked on Joe from 1983-1985 and did a number of pencil concept sketches as well as full-blown illustrations (in oil on board) for characters that had “passed the first round” of approvals. He was also behind many of the motorized backpacks. And his work was for internal review.
It was just announced that gi joe will be coming out as Kre-o. I’m disappointed that it isn’t Lego and is a knock off. Despite that I’ll definitely look into it.
Leaky Suit Brigade 